John Kennedy’s sail boat, the Victura, is on display at the JFK Presidential Library in Boston and pays tribute to the former president’s love of the water. So this photo is, in part, an extension of my recent post about Kennedy sites in the Boston area. But it’s also a post about other presidents who enjoyed being in the water — and who were swimmers — which I started thinking about after watching some of the US Olympic swimming trials that have been taking place this week.
A number of presidents were swimmers, including Franklin Roosevelt (who used swimming as therapy for paralyzed legs caused by polio and had a swimming pool installed in the White House), and Gerald Ford and John Quincy Adams, who both swam almost daily. Adams, back in the 1820s, typically swam nude early in the morning in the Potomac River.
Two former presidents, meanwhile, were actually competitive swimmers on their college teams. Ronald Reagan swam for Eureka College and also worked as a lifeguard in his hometown of Dixon, Illinois. And John Kennedy was a member of the Harvard swim team.
Kennedy’s greatest swimming feat, however, came when he served in the Navy during World War II. In 1943, after his PT boat was sunk by a Japanese destroyer in the Pacific, he and his crew swam three miles through open ocean to seek safety on a nearby island … and Kennedy swam the entire way while towing an injured crewman via a life vest strap in his mouth!
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